Many musical instruments employ electronic devices to amplify, alter, augment or directly produce sound. The most common of these instruments include guitars where the sound produced by vibrating strings is amplified and/or altered by electronic equipment, and organs where the sound may be produced directly by the electronic equipment in response to signals generated by striking combinations of keys. The range of sounds that can be produced by electrical instruments can be altered by the musician. In particular, most electrical instruments include at least volume, bass, treble and loudness controls. Other instruments may include adjustments for creating varying degrees of reverberations.
The adjustments for most electric instruments are defined by arrays of rotatable potentiometers. In particular, each controllable feature typically will include a rotatable shaft extending from a housing, with a small knob removably mounted to the rotatable shaft. Manual rotation of the knob causes a corresponding rotation of the shaft to which the knob is mounted for adjusting the appropriate control (e.g. volume). The number and spacial arrangement of potentionmeters incorporated into the electronic control device may vary substantially from one manufacturer to another. For example, some electronic devices comprise three or four rotatable poteniometers disposed in a generally linear array, while others include potentiomenters disposed on a control panel in a non-linear array.
Virtually all control panels for electronic instruments are constructed for manual turning of the adjustable potentiometers to a selected orientation. However, a musician typically will be using both hands while playing the instrument. Thus, adjustments to the output sound while the instrument is being played generally cannot be made unless the musician is accompanied by a sound technician. The ability to retain a technician to make electronic adjustments during the course of a musical presentation is a luxury that generally only can be afforded by the few financially successful musicians. Additionally, this luxury removes the musician from the actual creative output of his or her efforts. In view of these drawbacks, most musicians avoid making electronic adjustments during the course of a performance, and tolerate a less than optimum accoustical output.
Many musical instruments, such as organs and pianos, include pedals permanently incorporated therein for altering the principal sound produced by the musician's fingers. Examples of prior art showing foot actuated adjustment means permanently incorporated into a musical instrument are shown in: U.S. Pat. No. 1,956,350 which issued to Hammond on Apr. 24, 1934; U.S. Pat. No. 2,710,556 which issued to Koehl on June 14, 1955; and U.S. Pat. No. 3,894,445 which issued to Rowe on July 15, 1975. Foot-operated pedals that are not specifically intended for musical instruments are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 806,708 which issued to Perry on Dec. 5, 1905 and U.S. Pat. No 2,688,262 which issued to Bolton on Sept. 7, 1954. The above identified prior art generally includes a foot-actuated pedal having a gear means attached thereto. The gear means attached to the pedal is rotatably engagable with a second gear means which changes the direction of rotation achieved by the movement of the pedal to carry out an appropriate adjustment on another member.
The above identified foot-actuated adjustment means can enable adjustment of certain instruments having such a foot-operated pedal permanently incorporated therein. However, the teaching of the prior art is of little benefit to the musician having an electronic instrument with an array of manually rotatable potentiometers disposed on a control panel. More particularly, the prior art provides no teaching that would enable the many musicians having electronic controls with manually rotatable potentiometers to employ the foot pedals to adjust rotatable potentiometers. Furthermore, even if the teaching in any prior art reference could be adapted to construct a foot-operated apparatus for rotating the potentiometer control of a musical instrument, the resulting structure undoubtedly would be limited to a particular musical control apparatus, and would not be universally applicable to the broad array of control equipment available for musical instruments.
In view of the above, it is an object of the subject invention to provide a foot-operated control for a potentiometer of a musical instrument.
It is another object of the subject invention to provide a foot-operated apparatus that can be mounted to any of a plurality of different rotatable potentiometers on musical instruments.
It is an additional object of the subject invention to provide a foot-operated apparatus for controlling a potentiometer that can readily be set to various adjustable maximum and minimum control positions.
Still a further object of the subject invention is to provide a foot-operated apparatus for adjusting a potentiometer, with said apparatus being mountable in any of a plurality of different orientations depending upon the spacial disposition of potentiometers on the musical instrument control panel.
Yet another object of the subject invention is to provide an adjustable control apparatus for a musical instrument that can be removably placed on a potentiometer shaft.
Another object of the subject invention is to provide a control apparatus that can be readily actuated by a foot, elbow, backhand or other such part of the body.